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"Its easy to argue about issues from afar. But until you have experienced the issue first hand, you have not seen all the facts."

Carver you will be cut off for a long time before reinforcements can reach you "I am the reinforcements the main force is only coming to bring me body bags and to clean up the mess Im about to make" - General Carver

Comment

what's the game like? It looked interesting in Steam, but how's the gameplay? What games would you compare it to?

Some of these numbers are offhand, I don't have the game handy, but the general principles should be right.

I don't know of any games I would compare it to. It plays a little like Ruse, but it is far more balanced, and there is not a heavy focus on information warfare. The easiest way to describe it is that it really is a wargame, as if Eugen took a regimental level tabletop wargame and digitized it into a realtime game. Nato nations tend to play more defensively than Pact nations, but it isn't impossible for Nato to stage a breakout or for Pact to dig in and hold the line. Units consume fuel as they move, and become damaged and expend ammo in the course of battle, so managing your logistics is an important part of the game, and there are no bases to manage, no build orders to follow. Keeping a good mix of unit types ready to go at their optimal ranges is another pillar of victory, for example, four Leopard 2A4 tanks are not as good at holding the line against a push of 16 T-55As as three Leopard 2A4s and some Weasel TOW vehicles. You need to manage your recon too, which you can do with infantry, special recon vehicles (example, the US have the M2A1 in IFV and Recon flavors, they have different amounts of ammo and the recon M2A1 has much better optics).

Units have a morale system, in which their accuracy, rate of fire, etc, degrade as they come under fire, as well as a veterancy system, which increases their accuracy, rate of fire, etc. Morale and Veterancy only affect the crew, a level 1 tank and a level 5 tank have the same health and number of shells, but the level 5 crew will panic less and be more accurate under fire. Units have individual stats for their weapons systems (the range against any applicable targets split into ground/helicopter/aircraft, accuracy, rate of fire, damage in High Explosive of Armor Piercing, etc), and these systems vary from unit to unit. Additionally, units have some basic traits such as their speed (vehicles have both on and off road speeds, infantry just have one speed, but they can negate heavy terrain without penalty), their health (listed in game as "power"), some units have stabilizers, which tells you what the accuracy penalty for firing on the move is, their fuel capacity and an estimate of their maximum range, an optics value, which determines their base ability to spot, modified by the opposing unit's stealth value (if they have one, not all units do), and any terrain that blocks line of sight, including forests or hills.

Choosing what units you have available is managed through a system called Decks. You build your decks before the game starts (you start the game with a finite number of units in reserve, and you may not summon any reinforcements you do not have in your deck. There are normally plenty, but for a particularly long game, or one in which you have had bad luck or tactics, you may run out..) along a variety of options by selecting "cards" of units which have an activation cost that limits the overall number of unit cards you can have available based on how many of what kind of units you have, it makes categories of units more expensive as you include more of them, for example, the first, second, and third card of Tank units costs 1 point, the fourth and fifth cost 2, the sixth and seventh cost 3, and so on, up to nine cards in a category total. You pick the unit you want, as well as the veterancy level you wish to deploy on the field. The higher the veterancy, the less of a unit you can have. You may, for example, choose an M48 Chaparral at level 3 veterancy and get 12 of them, or you may chose the level 5 variant and get only 6 instead.

If you wish to create a thematic deck, such as a Category C (pre 1975 units) US Marine deck, you receive bonuses in exchange for some penalties. You can pick three theme types; nation, type, and category. Nation decks restrict you to picking only that nation's units in exchange for extra activation points (the default is 32 I think, you can get up to a +8 bonus depending on the nation), as well as that nation's prototypes, for example, if you pick a US deck, you get access to US prototypes including the F-117 Nighthawk, the only aircraft in the game with an Exceptional stealth rating as well as a Paveway II that has an High Explosive value of 30, the highest in the game. You may also chose to create a type deck. Types include Armored, Mechanized, Marine, Para, and Air assault among others. In exchange for units being less available, you get a veterancy bonus and/or an activation point bonus. An Armored deck may only field 3 Helicopter type cards, but all Tank type cards cost 1 less point, meaning you can have more of them in your deck. Additionally, restricting the Type also limits some unit choices, you cannot, for example, have any AH-64s in a Marine type deck. Finally, you can chose a category bonus, B or C, which limits the units you can select based on the year the game has assigned them in exchange for a percentage boost to availability. In exchange for a Category C deck, for example, you cannot select any unit tagged as introduced after 1975, but of the units you do get, you receive an extra 80% of them per card.

...now that I think about it, Wargame has a pretty breathtaking level of detail. I'm sure there's stuff I've forgotten Acreo, if you or anyone else has questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

It's a very fun game if you enjoy measured strategy with short bursts of intense action.

"Its easy to argue about issues from afar. But until you have experienced the issue first hand, you have not seen all the facts."

Carver you will be cut off for a long time before reinforcements can reach you "I am the reinforcements the main force is only coming to bring me body bags and to clean up the mess Im about to make" - General Carver

Comment

Last that I was given to understand, there was a big uproar on the official forums because the co-op campaign is not co-op, it's 1v1 versus. Eugen have said that they miscommunicated and that they never intended there to be player+player versus AI campaigns.

I don't particularly care for the AI to begin with. In wargame, a big game mechanic revolves around spotting/cover/concealment, you can stick your units in trees and hedgerows and infantry in buildings and the enemy cannot see them until they get very close or until they have a recon unit within range. The AI is under no such limits, and routinely sends surgical strike forces on a direct path at any unprotected units, under cover or no. This is particularly troublesome given that there is a class of units, called command vehicles, that represent your control over sectors, and when all of them are lost, you lose the game. It is common practice in multiplayer to leave the CV securing your main base essentially undefended due to a combination of sportsmanship and the general difficulty of securing a good corridor to advance through. The AI can plot a perfect course for one or two tanks to ninja through your lines, something I rarely see from players. Also, AI units do not obey the same logistical rules as humans. In the middle of the match, the AI may chose to resupply its units without any logistics units, and it may also chose to randomly spawn Forward Operating Bases anywhere on the map, whereas players many only spawn them before the game starts and only in their initial control zones. (Forward Operating Bases contain 10,000 "supply", which you may transfer onto logistics trucks/helicopters and ferry those supplies to the front line for use. Most logistics trucks hold under 1750 supply, most helicopters hold under 5000 supply points.)

Wargame is first and foremost a multiplayer game. The better a player you are, the smaller the game you can play. 10v10s have a lot of cushion for new or inexperienced players to make mistakes because they have a lot of teammates to pick up the slack.

Comment

Aw, sad to hear that the AI essentially cheats. Always seems like the mark of bad AI if they have to escape some of your rules in order to be challenging. Bit 10v10 multiplayer sounds great, I love World in Conflict, Supreme Commander etc. where you can have massive teams working in smaller groups.

"Its easy to argue about issues from afar. But until you have experienced the issue first hand, you have not seen all the facts."

Carver you will be cut off for a long time before reinforcements can reach you "I am the reinforcements the main force is only coming to bring me body bags and to clean up the mess Im about to make" - General Carver

Comment

Right now, the maximum number of agents you may have in a game you have hosted is 8. You may have any combination of players and AI on any size teams. I play 7 players versus 1 AI semi-frequently, and I am able to launch a skirmish game of me and 3 ai versus 4 ai. The campaign is going to be 1v1. You may fight against a player or an AI, but there will be only one combatant on each team. 5v5s, 6v6s, 7v7s, 8v8s, and 10v10s are hosted on dedicated servers by Eugen right now, and cannot have any AI in them, though at some point, players may be allowed to host their own large games.

The only combination that is missing right now is a full campaign that consists of player + player versus AI (or player + player versus player + player). Is that clearer?

Comment

Additionally, it was just announced that Command Stars are being removed. In European Escalation, Command Stars were earned by completing single player and multiplayer missions and were exchanged for unit types to place in your deck. (In order to put the AH-64 Apache in your decks for use in games for example, you needed to unlock it in the menu at the cost of 8 stars). This means that all units will be available to slot into decks from the beginning, as opposed to gradually increasing the number of units you can construct your deck from.

Comment

This game is amazing. Hands down one of the best modern war RTS games. Don't be afraid of the game's complexity, you're good to go once you get the hang of the basic game mechanics. In fact, you're bound to be hooked after getting past the initial learning curve. The good thing is there's ample resources guides out there from an established Wargames: European Escalation community. One of the game's veteran player's published a series of great 3-min tutorials on the basic fundamentals of the game that I thought I'd share for anyone that might be interested:http://www.wargame-ee.com/forum/view...p?f=93&t=27968

The new units include a West German F-4F in air to air combat configuration, Canadian Javelin MANPADs teams, an East German MiG-29, also in air to air combat configuration, and East-German Leichte Schützen, a 10 man light infantry squad with the Metys ATGM, to name a few.

Conquest mode is different from the one in EE. Now, victory points are earned as the difference between your income and your opponents income of command points. If you hold a total income of +21 and your opponent holds an income of +18, your victory point income will be +3. This hopefully allows players to come from behind and successfully dislodge the current "king of the hill", as well as providing a pressing incentive to attack as soon as you're able if you're running behind.